Bushbuckridge

"Baby are you down down down down down?"-- Jay Sean (because we hear that song every day, without fail, here.)

The South African sun has made my skin nearly unrecognizable. I actually find it to be quite beautiful.

There's a limited amount of space for what this blog needs to say and I haven't been editing my posts so I apologize for the bad quality of writing. A few highlights of what I ought not forget.

We (my roommates and I) bathe under the stars every night, sometimes with a candle and music in the background in a bath house. If I had to estimate, I would say the process of bucket showering takes 1/20th the amount of water as most U.S. Americans use on a daily basis- and we feel just as clean and more in-tune with nature. We also hand wash our own laundry and lay it out in the sun to dry.

My roommates and I have lived with a homestay family in the Islington Village of Bushbuckridge, South Africa for one week now. They're the most accomadating of people- very community oriented and religious. The household is headed by a primary school teacher and her daughter, a youth activists, and consists of a few other cousins who circulating in and out.

The dynamic of the situation in Bushbuckridge, as the class I was in discussed today, is one where there are very few men present in the villages. There is plenty of differences in opinions concerning whether it takes a father or male figure/ role model to help raise boys into men-- or even for females to have a balance of role models in their lives. There is a huge issue of violence in this nation and a correlation between fatherlessness and risk factors for drug use, imprisonment, and violence exists at least in the United States. Taking a keen interest in minority male youth, my perspective on this subject is clear, but again, this is a different society and having a nuclear family doesn't equate to having the best family for raising children, even in the United States. It's an interesting dynamic-- there's simply an obvious fact that men are not present within these villages so I wonder if we'll see repercussions of this effect in the future.

The idea of gender also resignated when the students viisted Hlokomela, an organisation working in conjunction with the government to reduce the prevelence of HIV/AIDS among farm workers in the nation. Because many workers are migrants from surrounding countries, they're among the most discriminated against population in South Africa. A correlation exists between this and the knowledge that farm workers have a much higher risk of being infected with HIV/AIDS than others living in South Africa. The organization's approach to fighting the spread of pandemic within the farming population is to educate men and boys on changing their behaviors and respecting women. This includes making condoms available, workshops focused on changing the mindset men have about traditional gender roles including that of having multiple sexual partners, violence, and alcohol. I commend this effort as it definitely provides an alternative approach to the United States' on reducing violence and the spread of HIV and makes men more aware of their actions. However, the strategy is far less than comprehensive when it fails to produce programs for female farm workers to empower them on their sexual rights. If the men they're with don't change their behaviors, females should be empowered to make the decision to leave that unstable situation.

Another clear observation about South Africa is that it is a deeply religious nation. I went to a community church service on Sunday conducted in the Tsonga language. At this point, many everyday occurences are contributing to my realization that I'm facing a subtle culture shock. Not being religious, religion being entrenched in so much of people's everyday lives and leaking over to my everyday life is something I wasn't quite prepared to handle-- though I yet tell if the experience will turn out to be positive or negative in the end. The choir did sing beautifully and the church-goers were very passionate about what they believed.

Everyone at church was Black South African besides my roommate and I. Being entrenched in that experience has made me even more so hyper-aware of my own identity-- not as an American, but as a mixed individual who the Black community doesn't recognize as Black and who hasn't studied and understood enough about her own Black history.

As I've said several times before, I feel that part of me is missing or neglected because that part of my history has been ignored. Often times I'm identified completely as Vietnamese, with Vietnamese friends and inocculated in Vietnamese culture, and though I appreciate it, there is more to my being and my history than that-- and it is a rich history that my family and I have yet to explore. So travels to North Viet Nam in early March will be interesting... I have dark skin, I'm too mixed to be completely Vietnamese, I feel too disconnected to identify with my black brothers and sisters but the country of South Africa, even moreso than New York or Washington, DC has brought up emotions that I know have been there all along.

If I knew where my grandfather was from; I would like to trace that history back.

South Africa has created a lot of conversation about what it does and doesn't mean to be Black, what it does and doesn't mean to be Asian, and why even Asian women discriminate against Asian men in the United States. This program, as well as Colby and several elite college in the United States do accept Black students students, but I'm realizing more and more that the system is not working because of the somewhat particular sector of Black students they're accepting.

Because the category is so vague and ambiguous, schools aren't accepting as many students from low income or largely Black/African American Students from lower income neighborhoods but rather accepting more first or second generation Haitian/DR/African/Caribbean Americans who have parents and grandparents who migrated to the United States. These students, thus, may be able to trace their heritage. These students, thus, may be raised with a different culture and be exposed to their parent's or grandparent's struggles for them to have the life they live in the United States. The point of traveling to U.S. for many immigrants is to create more success through the process of education for their future generations. I don't wish to over-generalized, but from my personal observation, education is highly valued from a young age.

Disenfrenchised Black Youth from the U.S., however, may be exposed to fewer examples of Black success in their communities if they come from poor communities. Stereotypes about young Black men are arguably also the most negative while some may feel disconnected from their own history, as I am. Schools not accepting these young men and women when attempting to fulfill their "obligation" for Affirmative Action is problematic. I wish I knew more because still I don't know much but from my perspective schools aren't doing much to lift up struggling (socio-economic) communities in the U.S. With the very little I've learned about the South African education system, there seems to be several parallels concerning race, socio-economic status, and education in both countries.

The same could be said for Asian American students who are Chinese or Japanese rather than Thai, Vietnamese, Laos, Cambodian and others--- the latter being largely underpresented in quality high education. There's a dichotomy within the schools as well as within the neighborhoods these populations typically come from. In 2002, only 58 percent of Vietnamese/ Vietnamese Americans were graduating high school and much lower for Cambodian students. Vietnamese and Cambodian are a fairly new immigrant population and often parents are able to provide less financial stability or have to work more.

A better system than Affirmative Action needs to be formulated.

I appreciate South Africa because it has got my mind churning though I feel disconnected from home by lack of e-mailing and calling so, yes, there are even when times when I'm immersed in this culture, the vibrant children, the strong women, the charming people, and breathtaking natural beauty of it all, that I miss home and I miss Colby as well.

---

There's no dignity in reconciliation
It's a frail imprint of what we used to be
when your ideals and my ideals compromise
to no ideals
and the pleasure charred with the reassurance
that we could
when all it means is we'll work
ourselves through bitterly
trampled by the fear
of change
struck immune by the languish
of familiar
and we stop looking for the pleasure we sought when we saw
each other
caged within still minds
at tension
with the body's yearning
for tension
between hands and breasts
caressed
by a best friend who is now a stranger.